XPS 13 Bitlocked after Bios update yesterday

Just curious....how many of you recently had your service warranty expire? I have literally tried every solution posted on these boards, nothing has worked. Even a paid Dell service tech couldn't resolve it today. Not sure there is any options other than wipe it clean...

The issue has not been fixed. Your comment on downgrading the BIOS is not fixing the issue.

The same Classic story, Windows automatically flashed BIOS to 2.16 along with its updates, after reboot BitLocker is prompting the key.

I downgraded BIOS to 2.12 using BIOS Update utility from one time boot menu. Unfortunately downgrading BIOS is not fixing the issue.

Seems it's been hot topic among Dell users since release of BIOS 2.16. Has anyone contacted to Dell Technical Support?

My requested to Dell support was declined as warranty period of my laptop has expired. If someone has one within warranty, please reach out to Dell support. This issue needs to be solved ASAP, very need to access my data.

Thank you for your detailed explanation. This helped me to downgrade BIOS.

Unfortunately in my case too, it did not solve the problem with the system. I suspect that recent BIOS upgrade was not only change which recently contributed to system malfunction.

I'm still trying to figure this out but all doors seems to be firmly shut.

How I Recovered Two XPS13 (9360) from BitLocker Lockout.

As others have reported, Dell pushed out a BIOS update (2.16.0), dated as of 7/29/21, that inadvertently failed to turn off the BitLocker trigger in the update, and caused two of our Dell XPS13's to get locked out.   The Dell warranty had expired on both machines.

Like most other people, we had not saved the BitLocker 48 digit pass key as we were never prompted to do so, either at system setup or later, and were faced with the BitLocker "blue screen of lockout death".  The Key was not saved to any Microsoft Account, because we were never prompted to, EVER.  After an all day effort yesterday, I was able to get both machines rolled back to an earlier BIOS iteration, and then in the BitLocker Blue Screen "Other Recovery Options" (or something similar) section, I deleted several recent Feature and / or Critical updates, and the machines then each booted up.  At that point, I turned off WiFi (to prevent an automatic update), retrieved and saved the BitLocker 48 digit key.  Once the WiFi was turned on, the machine enters auto update, downloads the offending new BIOS version, and the machines were both BitLocker.  Once the unlock keys were entered, all was good again. 

I'm hoping my pain, and ultimate success, will help others.  Here is what I did, written for less experienced folks.  You will need a UBS thumb drive.:

1.  On a separate computer, visit the Dell XPS 9360 support page and enter your Service Tag number (from bottom of laptop) at: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/xps-13-9360-laptop/overview

2.  From that page, click the blue box that says "Overview" in the middle of the page, and select "Drivers and Downloads", then click "Find drivers" under the "Manually Find a Specific Driver for your XPS" box, and scroll down to the list of drivers. 

3. In the "Category" search box, select "BIOS", and the recent offending BIOS version (2.16.0 Release Date 29 Jul 2021) should come up in the list.  Click on the "down arrow" at the right side to reveal info about the driver, and next to the Version number, click the link "Older Versions" to see prior BIOS versions.

4.   Some folks on here reported success using the immediately prior BIOS version of 2.15.1, but that didn't work for me.  I used BIOS version 2.12.0, Released 01 Jul 2019.  Click on that version, and download it to your thumb drive.

5.  Back on the BitLocker locked laptop, power it down and then plug the thumb drive in to a USB slot.  I used the left side slot, but I don't think it matters, and then press the laptop power button to reboot the machine.  As it's rebooting, quickly press the F12 button (do not simultaneously press the "Fn" button and F12, just the F12 button) repeatedly while rebooting, until you are put into the Boot Manager.  When the Boot Manager page appears, you should see at the bottom the current BIOS version that your laptop is running, which likely will be the evil BIOS Revision 2.16.0.  To roll that version back, use the down arrow, and select BIOS Flash Update and press enter.

6.   At the next window, click on the box at the top right with ". . ." inside it.  Next to "File System" at the top, click that and change from "FS0:" to "FS1:" and then under "Files" on the right side, you should see the BIOS version 2.12.0 file that you saved to your thumb drive.  Select that file, and click "ok", and it should load.  I can't remember if once the new BIOS loads, it automatically reboots or not, but if not, click save then exit.

7.  (These steps are from memory, so may not be exact) At the next reboot, you likely will get the BitLocker Screen once again.  One of the "Other Options" gets you to a screen, where you can click two buttons to uninstall various recent feature and important updates.  I kept pressing those buttons, to presumably delete certain recent updates, rolling the machine back to a happier time.  I did that several times.

8.  Then, after several reboots, the machine magically booted into the Windows 10 environment (what I now call, the " YEAH screen") prompting my screen login password.  After entering, I quickly disabled WiFi (Settings | Network and Internet | WiFi | slide to Off), and then went to find the BitLocker Security Key, located at:  Settings | Update and Security | Device Encryption | BitLocker Settings | Back up your recovery key - then on that screen, click the "Back up your recovery key" link next to the shield logo.   It will then prompt you to save the 48 digit key to a file, or to print it.  Obviously, if you save it to a file, save that on a different machine or in the Cloud.  I saved it to the thumb drive, as a text file.  But wherever you save, or print it, you will need it handy for the next step.

9.  Then, with the 48 digit key in hand, I turned on WiFi, and rebooted the machine.  In doing so, Updates were automatically loaded, updating the BIOS to 2.16.0, and returning the BitLocker Blue Screen of death.  This time, I had the key and entered into the space (enter slowly and check as you're going).  If you wait too long after entering the key (like, to check the numbers again) it will time out and shut down, necessitating you to re-enter it again.  So check as you go and once you stop typing, click "Enter" reasonably quickly.  At that point, I got to the Windows 10 landing page, and I was fixed.  The machine will re-install the deleted Updates over the next several logins.

10.  Notes:  I did download and try the Hirens PE option , noted by Oskinho in this thread above, but I could not get that to work. So, I believe the combination of BIOS rollback, and Updates rollback, got my machines to work long enough to turn off WiFi, retrieve the BitLocker keys.  However, in the event that the Hirens PE program did somehow play a part, I should note that I did have it loaded on the same thumb drive as the old BIOS 2.12.1, when I installed that.  I hope you make it to the " YEAH screen"  Good luck, and .

This did not work for me. It seems that there are no updates to uninstall. I tried to uninstall both quality updates and feature updates several times.

Thanks for sharing, I also tried uninstalling the updates with no luck.

Thank you for sharing the experiences. As others, I was not able to remove any recent updates. Actually I'm quite baffled how any updates could be even removed, unless the system disk is unlocked first. I don't think recovery utility can access anything on the system when it is still locked...

Anyway congratulations to you for getting over!

same issues with everyone really, neither installed it myself and it's a personal laptop and no one else has accessed my dell XPS 9360 before. Tried this and it showed that I don't have any Bitlocker key installed in my account. I contacted both Microsoft and Dell as well and both said 'weren't their fault'. This is annoying. 

I have the same issue with an XPS13. I have never had the bitlocker key, nor installed it. It has been activated as a result of a BIOS update. Been round and round the houses on this with Microsoft and Dell. Microsoft have identified the specific issue via this forum. I have tried to roll back the BIOS and also boot up via Linux but to no avail.

After 'escalating' the issue through the outsourced Dell 'Technical Support' where they follow a script but have no genuine technical software engineering skills, I have gone through senior management and apparently the Complaints department, who said that it is not a recognised issue with an XPS13 and only if it was would Dell develop a solution. This is an definitive and blatant lie, as the posts above are testament.

To be told I have to write a letter to Head Office to escalate any further is utterly incredible in the 21st century and indicative of Dell's desire to hope customers will go away, wipe their drives and pick up the financial losses incurred by the loss of machine, data and time chasing through their support department.

The end result of having all my data encrypted is worse than illegal ransomware, where at least I would have the opportunity to pay and recover the data. Therefore Dell are worse than criminals in not recognising the issue nor making any competent service available to assist.

I have spoken to a number of 3rd party data recovery experts who have said that the MS Bitlocker encryption is so strong, that there is no way round it (although some crooks will sell you that there is). They have consistently advised that the only way is to retrieve a bitlocker recovery key from Dell, who hold it somewhere following the preinstallation during manufacture. This advice is consistent with MS guidance.

I suspect that Dell may hold the key for laptops which are in warranty, but given my laptop is 4 years old, if it was ever held, it has been wiped from records.

I have tried all the call centre numbers which all revert to the same call centre in India which is incompetent to say the very least.

Up until this point I had been delighted with my XPS13, but now I would never ever buy another Dell item, want to skip every piece of Dell hardware I own, and will advise any of my clients not to go anywhere near Dell for a corporate contract.

Please please please can someone in Dell take responsibility and help me.

Hi jphughan

Thanks for your suggestion. I am quite desesparate as I am been asked for the Bitlocker and I don't have it and all my data es locally stored. My situation is that I did a windows 10 update and after it I was asked for the bitlocker that I had never enabled and I didn't know it was enabled. And probably my DELL updates were not updated. So do you think your suggestion will work in my case? Thank you very much!  

Could you please explain me better what this means "assuming you haven't gone ahead and cleared the TPM to try to troubleshoot this, in which case the key will be gone". Thank you!

Good evenng jphughan,

I have been trying to downgrade my BIOS as you suggested, but unfortunately it did not work. All my data is locally stored. Any other ideas?Thank you very much.

DELL should come up with a solution. It is not possible that after updating the BIOS to 2.16.0 so many DELL users are experiencing this issue of bitlocker activation without no previous warning. DELL is responsible for the loss of our data.

Hi Werner,

May I ask you from wich BIOS version to wich BIOS were you downgrading and it worked out for you?

Thank you!